Saturday, January 14, 2012

WY Gov backs off wolf comments

LARAMIE
— Gov. Matt Mead backed away from a statement he made Friday saying he
supported a wolf-management plan that allowed hunters to target the
animals in Grand Teton National Park.

Maps in a management plan
slated to go before legislators show wolf hunting will be allowed in
Grand Teton National Park, the John D. Rockefeller Memorial Parkway and
the National Elk Refuge. The plan, forged in a deal between Mead and the
federal government, excludes Yel-lowstone National Park and the Wind
River Indian Reservation from hunt areas.

At a Wyoming Press Association luncheon Friday in Laramie, Mead said the specter of litigation shouldn’t delay the plan.

“I think we should go forward with the wolf plan,” Mead said.

In
response to a reporter’s question about whether wolves could be shot in
Grand Teton, Mead said, “Yeah, there could be, in the park.”

Later
in the day, Mead’s communication director, Renny MacKay, issued a
clarification stating the governor “mis-spoke” on the issue.

“He did not intend to say that were would be hunting in the national park,” MacKay stated in the email.

Wolf
hunting could occur on the John D. Rockefeller Memorial Parkway, which
is administered by the Park Service, MacKay stated. Under state and
federal law, Wyoming can and does allow hunting in the parkway, MacKay
said.

“While state jurisdiction may also apply to private or
state in-holdings inside Grand Teton Park for purposes such as paying
damage claims for livestock killed or injured by wolves, the state would
not prescribe hunting of wolves on [National Park Service] lands inside
[Grand Teton National Park],” according to the statement from MacKay.

Teton
County lawmakers identified portions of the proposed wolf-management
plan that have to be changed so Teton park retains jurisdiction over
wolf management within its borders. County lawmakers will have to
convince legislators to make the changes.

On the topic of school
funding, Mead acknowledged that Teton County schools could suffer budget
cuts if the legislature adopts a “hedonic wage index” as part of the
state’s school funding formula rather than the Wyoming Cost of Living
Index used now. Teton County school officials have said the district
could lose about 10 percent of its funding if amenities such as
beautiful views and recreation opportunities are considered in
determining staffers’ pay.

Mead said he favors a hedonic wage
index over a cost of living index, but he dislikes the idea of changing a
district’s budget drastically in a single year.

“Members of the legislature want to be fair,” Mead said. “You can’t all of a sudden drop people off a cliff.”

The
governor also said during the luncheon that falling natural gas prices
would cause a budget crunch in 2012 that would require all state
agencies to sharpen their pencils. The biennial budget Mead submitted to
legislators cuts about $17 million in ongoing spending from the
previous $2.76 billion general fund budget, the governor’s spokesman
said.

Roads should be one of the state’s top priorities, Mead
said, and funding them generously is crucial to the state’s future. A
new revenue stream for highways must be considered, he said. Potential
solutions include a higher gasoline tax or toll roads.

“I’m not a
fan of toll roads,” Mead said, “but I’m willing to look at anything.
... Highways are the backbone for Wyoming. We cannot afford to get
behind on highways.”

The film offers an abbreviated history of the relationship between wolves and people—told from the wolf’s perspective—from a time when they coexisted to an era in which people began to fear and exterminate the wolves.

The return of wolves to the northern Rocky Mountains has been called one of America’s greatest conservation stories. But wolves are facing new attacks by members of Congress who are gunning to remove Endangered Species Act protections before the species has recovered.

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Inescapably, the realization was being borne in upon my preconditioned mind that the centuries-old and universally accepted human concept of wolf character was a palpable lie... From this hour onward, I would go open-minded into the lupine world and learn to see and know the wolves, not for what they were supposed to be, but for what they actually were.

-Farley Mowat, Never Cry Wolf

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“If you look into the eyes of a wild wolf, there is something there more powerful than many humans can accept.” – Suzanne Stone